Rebecca Gilman's THE GLORY OF LIVING premiered at the Chicago Circle Theatre in 1996. That same year it won The Joseph Jefferson Citation for Best Play in Chicago and the American Theatre Critics Association's Osborne Award for the Best New American Play.It had its London premiere at the Royal Court Theatre in 1999 where it won the Evening Standard Award for Most Promising Playwright (the first American ever to win that award), the George Devine Award and received excellent reviews.
"What can one say? Except that plays don't come much tougher, or more compassionate, than 33-year-old American Rebecca Gilman's THE GLORY OF LIVING, which launches the Royal Court's final West End season. It's a viscerally powerful piece that, not unlike Bond's Saved, makes you look closely at a violent sub-culture from which you would normally shrink." – The Guardian (19/1/99)
The play premiered in New York on 30 October 2001 at the MCC Theatre with Academy Award winning actress Anna Paquin (The Piano) in the role of Lisa and directed by stage and screen actor Philip Seymour Hoffman (Almost Famous, Magnolia, The Talented Mr Ripley, Boogie Nights).
Gilman's Boy Gets Girl also received a production at the Royal Court Theatre in London last year, which produced Gilman's Spinning into Butter earlier the same year.
Rebecca Gilman is one of the most exciting playwrights being produced in the States and England at the moment with main-stage productions of her work recently playing in both London and New York.
Wildcard Productions has secured the rights to THE GLORY OF LIVING and is proud to present its Australian premiere season in August 2002.
Photography: Craig O'Regan